Tuesday, February 23, 2016

3/6 Update: "When what’s left of Labour sit around a very small table they must ask themselves how a party of conscience became a political condom," Irish Mirror columnist Pat Flanagan writes. "After being reduced to just seven seats they might also ponder how they allowed 104 years of working-class history be washed away by the monster they created, namely Irish Water." Flanagan also claims that former Labour Environment Minister Alan Kelly "barely keeping" his seat in the other week's election is viewed as a "catastrophe" - since he was the public face behind the privatization of water and it's "on the way out" - and that "a high-ranking party official" called him as "toxic as plutonium."

In a few days, Labour Environment Minister Alan Kelly will find out if the privatization of Irish water, his brother, and his own "braggadacio" will stop his meteoric rise in Ireland politics.

An Irish journalist overheard Alan Kelly tell his "spin doctor" that the characters on the hit Netflix show, "House of Cards" (Season 4 is set to air a week after the Ireland elections) "have nothing on the pair." On the streaming show, Emmy winner Kevin Spacey's Frank Underwood commits murder twice after getting spurned by the US president despite helping to get him elected. Clearly drawing from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Underwood often delivers soliloquies to the audience and plots with his wife to get his revenge on political enemies in order to sneak his way into the presidency.

In response to the article, a few weeks ago, a Reddit contributor jokingly wrote, "Alan Kelly has a new election poster.......", and linked to a photo-shopped mash-up picture of Minister Kelly's face on Kevin Spacey's body, as shown above.

According to Mark Kelly of The Irish Times, "There is a new economic bubble forming, and it appears to be morphing into Alan Kelly’s head. The Minister for the Environment, who could teach Italians a thing or two about braggadocio, released an especially vainglorious email on Wednesday after First Data announced 300 new jobs for Nenagh, in his electoral heartland. You see, it was Alan wot won it."

"The jobs are undoubtedly hugely welcome in Nenagh and Kelly clearly played an important role," Mark Kelly added. "Interestingly, First Data is a client of Teneo, the consultancy founded by Kelly’s brother, Declan."

Donal O'Donovan and Niall O'Connor reported for Ireland's Independent on January 21, 2016 - in an article titled "300 jobs created in Nenagh after lobbying from Kelly" - that "[t]he new R&D centre in Nenagh will be the company's first Irish location outside of Dublin. Hiring will start later this year ahead of the facility's opening in 2017."

"However, it has emerged that the company had initially considered increasing its investment in Dublin, where the company is already based, but opted for Tipperary following a meeting with Environment Minister Alan Kelly last year.

Following discussions with Mr Kelly, the company decided to locate its new research centre in the minister's constituency.

It is understood Mr Kelly personally flew to New York on three occasions to meet company executives.

The decision to openly lobby the company to set-up in Tipperary will further add to claims that the Labour Party deputy leader prioritises his own constituency above his ministerial role."

In its press release, First Data quoted Alan Kelly: "I’m absolutely thrilled that First Data are establishing a research and development centre in Nenagh. This is a huge endorsement of the local area and local economy by a major multi-national. I first met with First Data in January of last year in New York and having made the connection with IDA, accompanied them on their many inspections of the facilities in Nenagh and met with them in both New York and Nenagh. I am delighted, having worked with both the IDA and indeed Tipperary County Council, that they have decided to establish a new facility and bring 300 jobs to Nenagh. As the local Minister, I have worked night and day over the last twelve months to ensure that First Data chose both Nenagh and Tipperary as the place to establish their research centre.”

At his blog, Kelly added an additional "I'm absolutely thrilled this day has come," to the press release blurb then added, "I want to thank the IDA, Joe MacGrath, Marcus O'Connor, Brian Beck & all those involved with Tipperary Co Co, all the locals who met First Data on the many occasions they visited Nenagh with me. I want to thank all my own staff for working on this project. They can all now finally talk about it with everyone! Finally I want to thank Dermot Gleeson who has worked with me on this from day one and without whose support, time & work I wouldn't have been able to deliver this."

"Delivering jobs like this in First Data and the Silvemines Hydro Project is the reason I entered politics," he hyperventilated in his conclusion. "Thrilled"

Kelly made no mention of his brother, but Teneo's headquarters are in New York, so it's possible that some of the meetings might have taken place there. There doesn't seem to be any pictures on the Internet showing the Kelly brothers posing together (Editor's Note: Any readers who have found one, please send it to me).

In a somewhat bizarre interview comparing himself to the fictional, corrupt, murdering US President Frank Underwood, portrayed by Emmy winner Kevin Spacey, on the Netflix show based on a UK miniseries "House of Cards", Kelly told The Independent's Niamh Horan, in a story published on January 26: "Anybody who says that power isn’t attractive is telling you a lie. Of course it is. It’s obviously a drug. It’s attractive. It’s something you thrive on. It suits some people. It doesn’t suit others. I think it suits me."

"Before we sit down I hear Kelly joke with his spin doctor that the show’s characters have nothing on the pair," Horan reported, who adds that he's referred to as "Labour’s secret weapon —nicknamed the 'AK47'."

Alan Kelly has drawn a lot of heat from Irish Water protesters, and some suggest that Teneo may somehow be linked to the controversy. Billionaire Denis O'Brien, who is friends with both former President Bill Clinton and Declan Kelly, has also been blasted for owning a related firm called Siteserv, that controls the water meters.

Even though many activists may disagree, "Labour Environment Minister Alan Kelly has said water charges are not a major issue with the voting public, and claimed people were far more concerned with employment," Ireland's Breaking News reported earlier this month. "The Environment Minister dismissed calls for Irish Water to be disbanded and the function returned to local councils."

On May 30, 2015, Michael Kelly in Ireland's Village Magazine, reported that Allen Kelly's "campaigns were slick and well-funded, infused with energy and resources from his high-flying US-politico-PR consultant older brother, Declan, who donated a total of €7,500 in 2010, personally and through companies."

The Irish Examiner reported on July 5, 2014, "Declan, and a company co-owned by him, donated a total of €7,500 in 2010 to help elect the north Tipperary politician to Dáil Éireann. This included a declaration from Mr Kelly that his brother, from his address in New York, donated €2,480. A company jointly owned by Mr Kelly, Stone Park Taverns, also gave the new TD €2,500. Accounts for the same company show that, on top of that, it made a €2,500 payment to “North Tipperary Labour Party”."

Months before he was officially tapped by Hillary Clinton to his envoy position, Declan Kelly and Paul Keary were guest speakers at "a major think tank conference", that was "arranged by Alan Kelly on March 25, 2009: "Senator Kelly has managed to secure of some of Ireland’s leading business and sporting brains to speak about stimulating jobs growth and business in the Mid-West."

"Do you remember when a million dollars used to be a lot of money?" multi-millionaire Declan Kelly rhetorically asked at the News Ideas conference, then said the same about $10 million, $100 million, billions, and trillions referring to money spent by Irish businesses. Kelly bragged, later, that he was "fortunate enough to be invited to the White House" by President Barack Obama, a week earlier. He said "shame on us" if they don't "take advantage" of the economic opportunities presented by the close relationship Ireland had with the United States.

A video of Paul Keary speaking at the same conference can be viewed at this link.

There's not much time left for Alan Kelly to throw any reporters in front of a train, like the ruthless lead character in "House of Cards" did in the startling first episode of season two.

Saturday, February 20, 2016

Two other State Department aides used private email accounts while working for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, I've exclusively reported in the last two weeks. Media outlets such as the Associated Press and Gawker - along with conservative watchdog groups Citizens United and Judicial Watch - may want to add both names to any future Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests they intend. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley might want to write another official query naming them, as well.

One key thing to note is that John Kerry's State Department did or now knows both of these former government employees also used private email accounts, but instead of alerting the media or informing the public, they partially redacted both email addresses while dripping out Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's emails, making it tough for journalists to discover. And since the emails were sent to or from official government accounts, they didn't even need Clinton's emails to know about either private account.

My story on former Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs David S. Adams aka "CrippleCreek61" - who now works with other colleagues of the Clintons at Anthony Podesta's Global Solutions - was posted at this website on February 6th, and can be read at this link.

The Daily Caller published my exclusive article about "Monica R. Hanley, who began working for former Secretary Hillary Clinton as far back as June 2004, when the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate was a New York senator" yesterday, and can be read here.

Interested readers on the right and the left can contact media outlets to get them to report on this news, so that voters in the presidential primaries can be more fully informed.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

(Editor's Note: I try to stay out of taking sides, since I like to report fairly on both sides, but I am passionate about any journalists who are persecuted, wrongly arrested and/or mistreated in prison. Any journalist or blogger who reads this article PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do a story about this, to help prevent journalist Barrett Brown from being tortured for speaking out about his case or wrongful conditions in prisons.)

Barrett Brown even recently won a National Magazine Award for The Intercept, while in solitary confinement. This keeps happening after he gives press interviews, and the media doesn't give him enough coverage, as he finishes a five-year sentence, even though he never hacked anyone.

"Prison officials informed him that he was being 'segregated' for 'information-gathering purposes,'" the Free Barrett website notes. "For the first three days in the SHU, Barrett was deprived of his daily antidepressant medication."

On January 25, 2016, The Washington Post published an op-ed under the US President's byline called "Barack Obama: Why we must rethink solitary confinement."

"Solitary confinement gained popularity in the United States in the early 1800s, and the rationale for its use has varied over time," Obama wrote, adding that his "administration is taking steps to address this problem."

"Research suggests that solitary confinement has the potential to lead to devastating, lasting psychological consequences," Obama added. "It has been linked to depression, alienation, withdrawal, a reduced ability to interact with others and the potential for violent behavior. Some studies indicate that it can worsen existing mental illnesses and even trigger new ones. Prisoners in solitary are more likely to commit suicide, especially juveniles and people with mental illnesses."

If Obama truly believed this, he wouldn't have only banned it against juveniles: "How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people? It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity."

Obama shouldn't really be applauded for the half-ass measures he has taken. Before he leaves office he should stand by his words and make sure this "affront to our common humanity" isn't abused by any public or private prison officials anymore.

Solitary confinement isn't the only wrongful punishment that Barrett Brown has been hit with for speaking to the media.

On July 16, 2015, in one of his award-winning columns for The Intercept, Barrett Brown wrote: "...I was using the inmate email system to follow up with a journalist I’d provided with contact info for one of the inmate researchers and reiterating that the fellow had documented evidence of corruption within the Bureau of Prisons. Then, an hour later, my email was cut off. After a couple of days of inquiry I was pulled aside by the resident head of security, a D.C. liaison by the name of Terrance Moore, who told me he’d been the one to cut off my email access, as I’d been 'using it for the wrong thing,' which he clarified to mean talking to the press."

At Shadowproof Press, Managing Editor Kevin Gosztola reported on July 21, 2016, "Jailed journalist and activist Barrett Brown has received 30 more days of solitary confinement in the prison, where he is serving a five-year and three-month sentence issued against him in January."

"Brown, who had been put in 'the hole' at the Fort Worth Correctional Institution previously, was put in solitary confinement in late June after staff 'singled' him out 'for a search' of his locker and 'found a cup of homemade alcohol,'" Gosztola added.

Does President Obama approve of what happened to Barrett Brown? Did this punishment fit the "crime" for a journalist fighting a years-long addiction to heroin and alcohol while being locked up, mostly because of his anger at being wrongfully persecuted by Obama's Justice Department and wrongfully raided in March of 2012, based reportedly on the words of creepy informants - tied to security firms Brown covered as a journalist - who should be arrested for continually lying to the feds?

(Editor's note: The preceding paragraph included a sly tribute to Barrett Brown, who often purposely uses run-on sentences.)

Gosztola added, "As the Free Barrett Brown group indicated on July 20, Brown 'had a hearing on his infraction and received an extra 30 days in the hole, plus 90 days of phone, visiting, commissary and email restriction.'"

This keeps happening, Gosztola argued because "Brown has broad access to the press. He has been writing satirical columns from prison. This upsets BOP because it makes it harder to isolate and control Brown as a prisoner."

"We can report that Barrett Brown was placed in FCI Three Rivers’ Segregated Housing Unit (SHU) last Wednesday, 27 January, and released Tuesday 2 February — meaning he was in the hole on Monday 1 Feb. when it was announced that Barrett won the National Magazine Award for his prison column in The Intercept," the Free Barrett website posted on February 3, 2016

The Free Barrett website added, "Barrett was moved to the SHU just two hours after he had done a telephone interview with radio producer Kenny Webster. Prison officials informed him that he was being 'segregated' for 'information-gathering purposes.' For the first three days in the SHU, Barrett was deprived of his daily antidepressant medication. Barrett has previously been in the SHU several times, including one stay more than a month long."

"Obama’s action on solitary is a good small step in the right direction toward ending this abusive practice," Brown's supporters wrote.

If journalists and bloggers reported more on what keeps happening to Barrett Brown, then it might stop happening.

Ten days after I first noted this, a search on Google News reveals that only one journalist has reported on Brown's last stretch in solitary confinement.

Rogers mentioned that Brown has suffered from "mental illness," and, in fact, the first judge that saw Barrett after his arrest in September of 2012 agreed, and sent him to a mental health facility. "And when Barrett won his award, he was in solitary confinement, where he was deprived of his daily antidepressants," Rogers added.

Free Barrett's twitter account agreed with my tweet about the media's inattention to the ongoing torture of Brown, and added, "Hmm. You'd think someone winning a journalism award from solitary confinement would be news."

On February 1, The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald proudly bragged, "I'm pretty confident at the end of the night, we'll have the only award-winner in federal prison."

Free Barrett responded on February 8, after my tweets, "@ggreenwald even better, you got the only award-winner in solitary confinement. shouldn't this be news?" but all Greenwald did was retweet it. Even though he did help Brown raise money to hire better lawyers than the terrible public defendant who did little for Barrett when he was first arrested, Greenwald's Intercept hasn't really done enough reporting on Brown's imprisonment, and he really should assign reporters to help fight against the ongoing torture of one of their colleagues.

So I'm ending this plea with the same words I wrote at the top.

(Editor's Note: I try to stay out of taking sides, since I like to report fairly on both sides, but I am passionate about any journalists who are persecuted, wrongly arrested and/or mistreated in prison. Any journalist or blogger who reads this article PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do a story about this, to help prevent journalist Barrett Brown from being tortured for speaking out about his case or wrongful conditions in prisons.)

Thursday, February 11, 2016

UPDATE 2/16/16: I forgot to mention that Twitter's Trust & Safety VP Delbius aka Alison Stewart aka Del Harvey blocked my account after I complained to her publicly about a troll posting a picture of an apartment I used to live at, and anti-semitic tweets directed me by many others. At first, she blandly responded, "@ronbryn To report a TOS violation, you'd need to file a ticket via http://bit.ly/gottaproblem. I'm not the person who'll review it."

Then, after I asked why she left my stalker out of her response, and quipped, "Do you hate Jews?", Delbius tweeted, "@ronbryn Feel free to message @safety in the future with any other issues or questions," and blocked me. But Safety has never responded to a single Tweet I have ever sent it, and Twitter refused to ban the troll or even get him to delete that tweet.

In late October of 2012, Twitter suspended former Rhode Island State Rep. Dan Gordon after he tweeted (while still in office!), "do we have all of the patient's relevant d0xed information?" and "I shall proceed w/an immediate steel-toed scrotum kick to sedate." But he broke TOS rules by immediately opening a new account, and Twitter refused to take down the menacing account he obviously made called "Suicide Watch @brynsuicdewatch", because I wouldn't send them a copy of my driver's license to "prove" I was me. Journalist Lorraine Murphy @Raincoaster, who I reported about in Part 1, thought Gordon's violent threats to me were "entertaining", and, again, tweeted a link to her blog article, which included a link to the dox on me.

Twitter had already refused to ban @YourAnonNews, as I reported in Part 1, even though it "doxed" me under an operation called #OpKillTroll. Since @Delbius seems to be a longtime supporter of cyberstalking harassment and appears to approve of doxing by Anonymous, as I explain below, I certainly didn't want to send her department any more personal information.

In that same article, Newsweek's Lee reported that billionaire Mark Cuban tweeted, "So how come Apple hasn't removed twitter from their app store for violating the UGC & Personal Attack terms? pic.twitter.com/dXClFu0cmC", and that "Sacca sarcastically ask[ed] Cuban if he 'shorted Twitter stock'—selling Twitter stock with the assumption that he will repurchase the stock at a lower price in the future", but there's "no evidence that Cuban has held Twitter stock." Sacca's arguably defamatory and abusive tweet is still viewable on Twitter, while Cuban's tweet "doesn't exist" anymore.

Dan Gordon had been menacing me because I was reporting on Twitter that Anonymous was supporting him, even though he was trying to encourage Operation Wall Street protesters to attack police officers, and had a long criminal history: reportedly at least 18 arrests for assaults, drugs and attempted murder for allegedly trying to choke a girlfriend to death. In a Rhode Island NBC affiliate's TV news story, it was reported that Gordon wrote, "Eat shit and die faggot" on a young teenager's Facebook page. Even though the Associated Press and top papers in Boston and Rhode Island have reported about Gordon's violent past, and extensive criminal record, he often pretends only blogs like Huffington Post did, and they are full of lies.

Yesterday, I unblocked FormerRepDan after I noticed that he claimed in tweets that he had been contacted by the Donald Trump campaign and was invited to the Greenville, South Carolina office. "They may just want a campaign volunteer," Gordon speculated.

I wanted @RealDonaldTrump and others to see Gordon's alleged invitation, side-by-side with a screenshot of his threats to me and links to articles about his extensive, violent criminal history, including stretches in jail. Plus, an Associated Press article about how he reportedly committed "stolen valor" - which is supposed to be a crime - by falsely claiming he received a Purple Heart and fought in the Gulf War.

In response, Gordon - who was banned once for threatening me - retweeted me and called me a "crazy weirdo" and, in another tweet, a "dopey loon". Then he blocked me so that people couldn't see his tweets on my timeline, and as I note below, this is one way how cyberbullies abuse the Twitter system.

After I tweeted, "UPDATE: Twitter won't take down account urging me to commit suicide, which was obviously created by #Trump supporter http://ronbryn.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-twitter-should-ban-donald-trump_11.html," another vile Donald Trump supporter called "TrustedTrevor" responded, "Bitch, you know how many times SJWs have told me and others to 'kill ourselves'? Suck it up, buttercup." It was then immediately retweeted and "liked" by @ItsIchijouTime, @BasedCachanilla @Thombombadillo and @draginol Brad Wardell, the "founder/CEO of Stardock" ("a cutting-edge innovator specializing in desktop utility software and PC entertainment"), who are all supporters of #Gamergate.

(Editor's note: After I added the above paragraph and promoted it on Twitter with a #Trump hashmark, @Thombombadillo complained, "Personally, I'm a Sanders supporter, but I don't shame others for politics." Another #Gamergate supporter @DwayneWillis6 tweeted, "@ronbryn If #GamerGate are a bunch of abusive trolls then clearly, Anti-#GamerGate are the internets KKK," and included a screenshot of this completely racist tweet by @b0ltwolf: "Women that support the video games and gamers are no different than House Niggers during slavery #gamergate #Girlthing #MadeInAmerica." I was wrong and misinformed to condemn trolling and racism only by one side, initially.)

According to the user-generated Wikipedia, "Gamergate refers to the controversy around a harassment campaign orchestrated primarily through the use of the Twitter hashtag #Gamergate, concerning issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture." On October 10, 2014, Gawker's Jay Hathaway reported, "#Gamergate actually began in August as a pernicious attack on one female game developer, Zoe Quinn, and her sex life," and that she "has been the victim of death threats and harassment since she began trying to publish Depression Quest, a text-based game partially based on her own experience with depression, in 2013."

Many critics of the often racist, homophobic, and misogynistic tweets by #Gamergate defenders - who are raging against Twitter's new campaign to allegedly curb cyber-bullying because they believe it's against "free expression" - have been stalked, harassed and menaced for a year-and-a-half. Since nearly all the #Gamergate supporters regularly violate Twitter terms of service, it's hard to understand why the Social Network hasn't banned the anti-social advocates and let many of them get away with breaking cyber-stalking laws, that US federal law enforcement agencies hardly enforce.

Before I get to 2016 candidate Donald Trump, who former Florida Governor Jeb Bush famously accused of trying to "insult [his] way to the presidency" during a televised Republican debate in 2015, I needed to provide some background about a few of the things that have been done to to me for the last four and a half years, which I wrote about in "Why Twitter Should Ban Donald Trump: Part 1 #OpKillTroll".

But if you just want to read about Twitter's new campaign to stop bullying, and how I believe it should be used to ban a name-calling, abusive billionaire - who is shockingly, a top presidential contender leading many GOP polls - for helping to make it an anti-social network, you'll have to wait a day or two. However, I think it's best if you read the whole thing since it shows an example of victimization and Twitter's neglect in enforcing its own rules, perhaps because it hired the wrong person to help lead its Trust and Safety department.

For years, Twitter has done little to stop abusive trolling by bigots, sociopaths and alleged "satirists", even though they clearly break "terms of service" (also know as TOS). Now, since their stock is plummeting and they are losing money, Twitter claims to be taking it seriously, and will put a stop to online harassment.

But it's not just anonymous, cowardly, racist trolls who deserve to be banned. Some members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have used Twitter to dox critics and "enemies" for years. Doxing is a term that is often misused to refer to the outing of people who hide their identities, but it's actually more about posting addresses, phone numbers and private information such as social security numbers. The largest Anonymous Twitter account, @YourAnonNews, has been allowed to dox critics, police officers, and, even, some journalists for years.

This article isn't an attempt to demonize all of Anonymous, since I often report on imprisoned US journalist Barrett Brown, who was "embedded" within the group, wrongly raided by the feds in March of 2012, and arrested months later in September, partly because of his anger that an FBI agent was threatening to arrest his mother. Barrett Brown even recently won a National Magazine Award for The Intercept, while in solitary confinement. This keeps happening after he gives press interviews, and the media doesn't give him enough coverage, as he finishes a five-year sentence, even though he never hacked anyone.

"Prison officials informed him that he was being 'segregated' for 'information-gathering purposes,'" the Free Barrett website notes. "For the first three days in the SHU, Barrett was deprived of his daily antidepressant medication."

As a whole, Anonymous has done - and probably will continue to do - some great things, but doxing is a controversial issue that many members are against.

Some members of Anonymous dox families of their victims - who are sometimes horrible people who commit horrible deeds, as well - and there's a journalist named Lorraine Murphy aka "Raincoaster", who approves of this practice. In January of 2013, I got Murphy's editors at The Daily Dot to remove a link to a dox which included family members of girls who tortured a cat in an online video from her article. "Update: Out of respect for the relatives unintentionally affected, the Daily Dot has removed the link to the Pastebin document Anonymous released," was added in a note added to the bottom of Murphy's story. She even linked to my dox at her tumblr account, and often tweets it, when I notify her about mistakes or offensive sections in her articles, that are sometimes based on hoaxes spread by trolls or celebrate trolling as a modern artform.

I also don't want to demonize all trolls. Some trolls are just out to have fun, mock conventions, or make political statements. Others cross the line and are hateful bigots that get off on tormenting people.

Perverted Twitter Justice

Twitter's Vice President of Safety and Trust, @Delbius, uses the name Del Harvey, when her actual name appears to be Alison Shea.

According to her Twitter profile, "Del Harvey is best known for her contribution to the investigations on NBC Dateline’s popular 'To Catch a Predator' series. As a member of the online watchdog group 'Perverted Justice,' Del has helped bring countless sexual predators and pedophiles to justice. In the series, Del is often seen utilizing her small frame to act as a decoy (an adult pretending to be a young boy or girl)."

However, there doesn't seem to be verifiable evidence that Harvey "helped bring countless sexual predators and pedophiles to justice" (just the number of arrests are mentioned in countless media articles, but countless cases might have been thrown out of court) and, in fact, she and her former "Perverted Justice" colleagues have been accused of making false accusations and derailing the prosecution of suspects who may be guilty of such horrible crimes. She also made an obscene fortune doing this "work", and since Anonymous often targets alleged sexual predators and pedophiles in a vigilante manner, that might be why Twitter doesn't ban Anon accounts when they break T.O.S. with doxes of suspects and their families.

Notorious "Iron Troll" Neal Rauhauser often games Twitter into banning critics of his cyber-bullying, while his account, his countless socks and fellow trolls are hardly ever even suspended. Some of Rauhauser's critics are bullies, too, but none come close to him, since he routinely uses trolls to post social security numbers and make death threats, because he delusionally calls himself the "Principal Investigator at The Internet".

A critique of the "Perverted Justice" forum written by a Yale graduate student in 2008 sounds very similar to what Del Harvey allows accounts like @YourAnonNews to do on Twitter. Michael Seringhaus said that he, "was dismayed to find sandbox rhetoric and perhaps the most petulant FAQ section online today. Click the question 'How is this a crime? There was no actual minor!' and you are treated to a meandering hypothetical response, which begins: 'Such a stupid statement. If you’re reading this and you’ve uttered this at any point of your life, feel free to smack yourself for ignorance right now.' They also caution that they’re very powerful and well connected, and that 'threatening us is a very, very bad idea.'"

And "Perverted Justice" volunteers practice a dangerous form of doxing, as Seringhaus observed, "Interestingly, Dateline busts are just a fraction of the group’s activities. Their main trade appears to be independent baiting expeditions in chat rooms followed by extensive online information gathering and 'outing' of targets on the Web. This might include posting the street address, telephone number and other details about a mark in an online forum. Such information could then be used to humiliate and harass the individual and their family."

"One might argue that pedophiles and 'predators' deserve such punishment, but even so it is hardly the place of pseudonym-sporting civilians to dole it out," Seringhaus wrote. And I'll add, that it's shouldn't be the "place of psudonym-sporting" kids in a group known for wearing masks based on a terrorist from a popular movie "to dole it out" either.

A comment that Harvey made during a October, 2015 Wired.com roundtable, sounds like she is in line with Anonymous and is more concerned with privacy issues and what foreign governments might do to activists, instead of the "safety" that she's supposed to be in charge of: "Yes. Twitter recently introduced a couple of different identification paths for accounts. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t unduly putting people at risk. For example, we made sure that if you couldn’t provide a phone number, there were other options. Because outside the US, if the telecom is directly connected with the government, a phone number can lead the authorities to someone who’s an activist or a dissident or a whistle-blower."

On April 7, 2011, Gawker published a story by John Cook called "How the Weirdos Behind 'To Catch a Predator' Blew $1.2 Million". "Remember 'To Catch a Predator,' the awful festival of horror and shame from Dateline NBC that briefly captured America's heart in the mid-aughts?," Cook wrote. "We thought we'd check in with the creepy internet vigilantes behind it, and guess what? They're broke."

Cook noted "that one of the caught predators shot himself in the head while NBC News cameras waited outside his home, and people started to wonder whether reveling in the sickness and criminality of damaged people whose crimes were hypothetical and who wouldn't have even been there if NBC hadn't lured them there was really such a good idea," so, "[t]he network pulled the plug in 2008."

The fact that Harvey's show led to a suicide is probably why she was an awful choice to head Twitter's "Safety" team. Some think the Texan prosecutor might have been innocent, while others believe even if he was guilty, NBC and "Perverted Justice" helped act as his judge, jury and executioner. As ABC News correspondent Marcus Baram noted on June 4, 2007, "To this day, none of the 23 arrested in the sting operation have been successfully prosecuted due to insufficient evidence, according to the Collin County assistant district attorney's office." On June 24, 2008, Vic Walter and Maddy Sauer reported for ABC NEWS, "NBC has settled a lawsuit that blamed the network for the suicide of a Texas prosecutor who was targeted in an undercover sting against alleged pedophiles as part of the Dateline: To Catch a Predator show."

"The attorney for Conradt's sister, Bruce Baron, told ABCNews.com that 'the matter has been amicably resolved to the satisfaction of both parties,'" Walter and Sauer wrote. "Patricia Conradt had initially sued for $109 million. The amount of the settlement has not been disclosed."

On September 29, 2004, the Associated Press reported, "It's a website created to expose suspected Internet predators. But the site could be targeting innocent people, as a Milwaukee bank teller found out. Molly Brady got a threatening call from a man who said her phone number was posted on the website as a sexual predator. So, Brady typed her phone number into an Internet search engine and found it was linked to a site called 'perverted justice.'"

"The FBI in Milwaukee says it's familiar with the citizen websites, which can do more harm than good, since some of the predators could be violent individuals," the AP article added.

The New York Times - in a December 13, 2006 article by Allen Salkin - reported that, "the group is also criticized by some legal and law enforcement experts, who accuse it of entrapment, making mistakes that ruin innocent lives and, paradoxically, disseminating its own brand of child pornography."

"One concern about Perverted Justice's nonprofessional force of vigilantes, raised by Lieutenant Joseph Donohue, head of the New York State Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, is that decoys impersonating teenagers may be too aggressive, not understanding the need to let the other party initiate the sexual chat, and therefore not gathering chat-log evidence that will stand up in court," the Times article added.

In his 2011 Gawker article, Cook reported "Perverted Justice" secretary Allison Shea was paid $120,000 a year, after the NBC deal, and its "Foundation" that set its goals on "'promot[ing] internet safety' and helping cops 'apprehend internet based sexual predators'" ended up "spen[ding] more than $1,202,739 from 2006 to 2009 in pursuit of its tax-exempt goals. Of that, an astonishing 82% — $984,233 — went to salaries. Almost all of it — $783,000 — went to [founder Phillip John Eide aka 'Xavier] Von Erck,' [treasurer Dennis] Kerr, and Shea."

"Rather than use the money to build a long-lasting institution that might help people — or at least spark more pedophile suicides - ['Von Erck'] blew through it, and now he's got about ten grand left," Cook added.

In a July 2, 2014, Forbes article on Shea, Kashmir Hill reported that she "was the 25th employee at Twitter", and wrote, "Not listening to Harvey tends to be a bad idea. Last December Twitter decided to eliminate users’ ability to 'block' people they didn’t like from following and retweeting their accounts, replacing it with a mute option so they simply wouldn’t see the trolls in their feed. Harvey warned it was a terrible idea and would make cyberbullying easier. The blocking feature was pulled anyway, and the ensuing outcry was such that Twitter reversed the decision within 12 hours. It later tacked on the mute button as an option."

However, neither the block or the mute button do anything to make cyberbullying "tougher". They are just features to allow cyberbullies to maintain their accounts, and the 'block' feature is often used against victims, so that they can't show their Twitter followers the cyberbullying committed against them. Just because you can't see the cyberbullying on your timeline doesn't make it magically vanish from the Internet, and tweets show up prominently high in Google searches, which could affect the decisions of prospective landlords or employers.

"Harvey has an unusual background for someone with so much power over public speech," Hill wrote. "She isn’t a lawyer and won’t say if she graduated from college." Hill noted that at "Perverted Justice", Shea "eventually became the site’s law enforcement liaison, bundling up evidence for local police, and later, thanks to being small of frame, reprised her young-girl (and boy) decoy role on the NBC show To Catch a Predator."

Hill adds, "She advised Twitter to scrub location data from uploaded photos to prevent stalkers from using them to locate people."
However, this feature also prevents victims from using location data to find their stalkers, which Hill doesn't note.

During Harvey's reign, "Twitter [didn’t] allow threats but relies on its community to flag them for removal and report them to the police. While Twitter has automated systems to weed out spam, tweets about direct violence and suicide require manual review." In other words, for years, Harvey essentially relied on vigilante justice instead of doing anything about it herself.

Before I get to 2016 candidate Donald Trump, who former Florida Governor Jeb Bush famously accused of trying to "insult [his] way to the presidency" during a televised Republican debate in 2015, I need to provide some background about a few of the things that have been done to to me for the last four and a half years.

Feel free to jump to "Why Twitter Should Ban Donald Trump: Part 2 Perverted Twitter Justice", if you'd rather just read about Del Harvey's 'Perverted Justice' and 'To Catch a Predator' past, and what she has done as director, and, now, Vice President of Twitter's Trust and Safety. But if you just want to read about Twitter's new campaign to stop bullying, and how I believe it should be used to ban a name-calling, abusive billionaire - who is shockingly, a top presidential contender leading many GOP polls - for helping to make it an anti-social network, you'll have to wait until next week. However, I think it's best if you read the whole thing since it shows an example of victimization and Twitter's neglect in enforcing its own rules, perhaps because it hired the wrong person to help lead its Trust and Safety department.

For years, Twitter has done little to stop abusive trolling by bigots, sociopaths and alleged "satirists", even though they clearly break "terms of service" (also know as TOS). Now, since their stock is plummeting and they are losing money, Twitter claims to be taking it seriously, and will put a stop to online harassment.

But it's not just anonymous, cowardly, racist trolls who deserve to be banned. Some members of the hacktivist group Anonymous have used Twitter to dox critics and "enemies" for years. Doxing is a term that is often misused to refer to the outing of people who hide their identities, but it's actually more about posting addresses, phone numbers and private information such as social security numbers. The largest Anonymous Twitter account, @YourAnonNews, has been allowed to dox critics, police officers, and, even, some journalists for years.

This article isn't an attempt to demonize all of Anonymous, since I often report on imprisoned US journalist Barrett Brown, who was "embedded" within the group, wrongly raided by the feds in March of 2012, and arrested months later in September, partly because of his anger that an FBI agent was threatening to arrest his mother. Barrett Brown even recently won a National Magazine Award for The Intercept, while in solitary confinement. This keeps happening after he gives press interviews, and the media doesn't give him enough coverage, as he finishes a five-year sentence, even though he never hacked anyone.

"Prison officials informed him that he was being 'segregated' for 'information-gathering purposes,'" the Free Barrett website notes. "For the first three days in the SHU, Barrett was deprived of his daily antidepressant medication."

As a whole, Anonymous has done - and probably will continue to do - some great things, but doxing is a controversial issue that many members are against.

Some members of Anonymous dox families of their victims - who are sometimes horrible people who commit horrible deeds, as well - and there's a journalist named Lorraine Murphy aka "Raincoaster", who approves of this practice. In January of 2013, I got Murphy's editors at The Daily Dot to remove a link to a dox which included family members of girls who tortured a cat in an online video from her article. "Update: Out of respect for the relatives unintentionally affected, the Daily Dot has removed the link to the Pastebin document Anonymous released," was added in a note added to the bottom of Murphy's story. She even linked to my dox at her tumblr account, and often tweets it, when I notify her about mistakes or offensive sections in her articles, that are sometimes based on hoaxes spread by trolls or celebrate trolling as a modern artform.

I also don't want to demonize all trolls. Some trolls are just out to have fun, mock conventions, or make political statements. Others cross the line and are hateful bigots that get off on tormenting people.

#OpKillTroll

In late 2012, after journalist Barrett Brown was arrested, I was harassed by members of Anonymous who were misled into believing that I had something to do with it. The group mounted an operation against me called "OpKillTroll", and @YourAnonNews tweeted it to over a million-and-a-half followers. It linked to a dox on me which included old addresses, phone numbers, and many lies, and it's essentially ruined my life, because I have to live in fear that some crazy person might recognize me in real life, and take the word "kill" literally. Not one media outlet has ever reported on this, yet I'm the only journalist Anonymous ever asked its followers to "kill".

Many other Anonymous related accounts quickly retweeted and favorited the #OpKillTroll tweet, but Twitter ignored nearly all my complaints, and only briefly suspended one account for a few hours for tweeting about it.

Anon2Earth, who was featured in Brian Knappenberger's acclaimed 2012 documentary "We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists", was the source of the dox, and admitted to posting it on the @YourAnonNews account. Twitter Safety and Trust refused to even contact @YourAnonNews to get them to delete the tweet even though I sent them many emails and registered complaints about it. Before he posted the dox, I tried to reason with Anon2Earth, and told him that I was working to help free Barrett Brown, and some of his friends confirmed it. But he refused to listen, and sent me threatening tweets, warning me how much "power" he had to menace me on Twitter.

While he menaced me on Twitter, Lorraine Murphy aka @Raincoaster followed me on Twitter, and I sent her some Direct Messages, mostly asking if she approved of families of journalists being included in doxes, which she didn't admit until months later.

At her website, Lorraine Murphy wrote, "At that point I surprised Ron by going rogue: I publicly RT’d some of what he’d been saying to me, with 'lol' remarks appended. He appeared taken aback entirely, although this is really a very basic Internet Drama 202 move. If you thought he was a mite touchy before, fasten your seatbelt." The next day, Raincoaster updated her blogpost, which contained some of the Direct Messages that I had sent her. She gleefully blogged, "Well, would you look at that. He HAS been doxed."

In a comment, Murphy triumphantly wrote, "Now the whole world has his address and phone number." Another comment by Murphy bragged, "When I had the time, I was quite the troll, and I’ve been paid as a consultant on internet drama many times. He did not know who he was messing with."

On May 3, 2013, Raincoaster refused to update her blogpost, after I told her the dox she had linked to included many lies and disinfo about me, and falsely linked me to social network accounts and email addresses that had nothing to do with me. In response, she demanded money to edit her post. "You want me to edit it, you pay me," Lorraine Murphy tweeted.

I complained to Murphy's editors about her blackmail threat, when I wrote to alert them about her article at the Daily Dot, which linked to a dox that included family members. They apologized to me, but kept her on staff until she allegedly quit over a dispute about a correction added to another of her articles. Last December, Vanity Fair published a story written by Lorraine Murphy, which contained a few mistakes, such as referring to a notorious troll as a hacker, and linked to explicit gay pornography. When I tweeted Vanity Fair and Raincoaster about it, she responded by tweeting a link to her blogpost cheering the dox on me.

The satirical website Encyclopedia Dramatica - which appears to have pop-up ads that infect computers with viruses - has an entry on me, which includes a confession by Anon2Earth, "I warned him to back off or I would drop his dox, and it wouldn't be just a small portion of people who would see it - but a lot of people. He mistook what I stated as some kind of 'powerplay,' saying that I was telling him how 'powerful' I was. I don't do drama much, I was tired of playing and dropped his shit on my account and Your Anon News. He freaked, and didn't understand that I had the access to tweet from YAN; and stated something about why he didn't understand why Anonymous (especially YAN) would support me. I still don't think he quite comprehends what exactly happened to him."

Over two years after it was posted, on December 12, 2014, Anon2Earth finally deleted the #OpKillTroll tweet from @YourAnonNews, and tweeted, "@ronbryn greetings, that was an old tweet - I removed it; apologies it that it was still up. @apblake @dellcam @YourAnonNews @paulcarr." Neal Rauhauser had misled Anon2Earth into believing that I had something to do with his arrest, so I forgave Anon2Earth and asked him to tweet a message to the ACLU to try and get them to help Barrett Brown. But the ACLU never helped Brown or even responded to tweets, even though they have helped in many related cases. The ACLU Texas chapter reportedly told Brown's family that they didn't have enough people to help, but the national ACLU, as far as I know, never got involved.

Even though I've been one of the major critics of bullying and trolling on Twitter since I was menaced in the summer of 2011, after I worked on an article with The New York Times called "Fake Identities Were Used on Twitter in Effort to Get Information on Weiner", I've been smeared as a troll. There's even a satirical (and actually kind of funny) video on YouTube called "The RonBryn Song", which pretends that I'm a troll, because I've lost my temper more than a few times, since Twitter is very selective on who it chooses to suspend or ban, when it comes to cyber-bullying.

As I learned, when you're being menaced around-the-clock by trolls that disguise their identities, it's hard to sleep, and you develop a sort of post traumatic stress disorder, which causes you to lose your temper more often than you normally would, and even makes you so paranoid, that you wonder if coincidences or bad luck in real life are related to the online harassment. I also made a lot of tweets, that I'm not proud of, and wrote a few weird stories in 2011, after being stalked and harassed, and that is exactly what trolls want you to do. They create convolution and hope to make it seem like you are the villain, and that they are the heroes who bully you to scare you off the Internet. Many trolls hope to get you falsely arrested or driven mad; some sociopathic trolls even hope you commit suicide or die from heart attacks, and they will continue to mock their prey, even after they're dead.

I worked on that New York Times story with Jennifer Preston, who said that she would see if I could get paid for providing, literally, hundreds of hours of research on that article, and others that we planned that she mysteriously never wrote. And a few days after publication, she asked me to publicly defend the article on Twitter from a Deputy District Attorney in California, Patrick Frey, who is a noted conservative blogger called "Patterico" and many anonymous trolls that were harassing her over it. But as soon as I did, I was instead targeted by Frey and his libertarian-leaning posse, and - at the same time - by a Democratic operative that wrote weird conspiracy theories about Weinergate. He also blamed Patterico for being the source of the still-unknown trolls that pretended to be teenage girls to get info on former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned after admitting he lied about sexting and being hacked on Twitter and Facebook. Even though I later learned that Preston met with this oddball Democratic operative during Operation Wall Street in the fall of 2011, she claimed he was "dangerous" in a Direct Message she sent me in June of 2011, but never explained.

On July 29, 2011, the "dangerous" cyber-harasser - who often brags about being an "Iron Troll" - named Neal Rauhauser wrote a diary using his alias "Stranded Wind" at the Democratic website Daily Kos called, "Ethical Dilemma: Harassed By A Confused Man", as I noted in an article I published in September of that same year.

Rauhauser pretended that semi-threats on my life and against my family he tweeted to me, immediately after I publicly defended Preston, were just his way to try to "help" me. But this is what Rauhauser does. He uses sock accounts to harass critics and imagined "enemies", while claiming that he is a victim, and never does anything wrong.

"I publicly suggested on Twitter that he needed to go talk to a friend or family member about what he was experiencing, and he took this to be me threatening his family," Rauhauser wrote. "Nothing could be further from the truth and I stand by my suggestion: when it’s hard to tell what is going on it is best to seek outside advice."

Rauhauser ominously added, "That sort of outside advice is what I am seeking here. If this were some random annoying and/or dangerous right winger like Patrick Read or Patterico I’d put a bunch of his information in this diary so people could go find and torment him. If I were being truly evil I could even send a link to the diary to those rascally beandogs, who are the internet equivalent of a painful rash when they take an interest in someone."

The diary was mysteriously scrubbed (and can't even be found at archived links), even though Rauhauser was banned from Daily Kos hours after publishing it. And I was unfairly banned, too, for defending myself against the awful lies that Rauhauser used to get liberals to turn against me and conservatives to falsely accuse me of crimes, even though I was the Executive Editor of the left-leaning (but fair, when I ran it) political news website RAW STORY, and had recently done a story with David Corn published at Mother Jones based on WikiLeaks documents. I reported Rauhauser to the FBI for that diary, that same night, but they never got back to me, and the self-professed "Iron Troll" continues to "torment" me with trolls he recruits with ease, and many, many others that he targets, often for political reasons.

Also, bizarrely, even though it was obvious I was being victimized and tarnished by Neal, Patterico hatched an insane theory that I was in some kind of "terroristic" conspiracy with Rauhauser and convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin. Frey falsely accused me of making a bogus 911 call to get the police to "SWAT" him, which is a dangerous crime, and he knows I am innocent since I was on the phone with him while it happened, and couldn't have possibly committed it. Frey even used Twitter to harass me because I refused to talk to him on the phone, which appears to violate one of the California laws that he's sworn to defend. Since he falsely accused me of committing a crime, it sure is odd that Frey didn't just step back and let law enforcement officials investigate me, and it's even odder that L.A. County never fired him, even though he has bullied and menaced many people over the years.

Now, Patterico spends nearly every evening using Twitter to bash conservatives who don't want to vote for the candidate he supports, Ted Cruz, while he fends off a lawsuit from Kimberlin, after a judge agreed that Frey might be guilty of abusing his office to smear people over SWATtings. Each side in that lawsuit goes out of its way to not mention me in their filings, even though the only dubious link to Kimberlin is that I am the culprit, and the notorious hoaxer and convicted bomber has strange ties to my former boss at RAW STORY, John Byrne. The main reason I'm not named is that both sides know I will tell the truth, and damage both of their positions, since they are equally guilty of bullying and cyber - and "in real life" (aka irl) - harassment.

It's hard to find a job or an apartment when you're smeared as a troll and criminal on the Internet. At least fifty journalists claimed that they would write stories about this non-stop harassment, but not one ever has, and even though I break stories every week at this blog, most of them are largely ignored, because I've been blacklisted by liberals and conservatives. I'm also a tough press critic, and there are at least a hundred articles at nearly every media outlet that have corrections, based on my reporting or complaints. Journalism is extremely partisan these days, and since I report on both sides fairly, it's tough to find work for that reason, too. Also, sometimes I've gotten mad when I've been "exploited" or plagiarized by unscrupulous journalists, and that's used as an excuse to ignore my fair reporting, which is backed up by links, rather than just based on sources that lie.

On December 19, 2015, after I asked Lorraine Murphy on Twitter if she constantly links to my dox hoping I'm SWATted, and asked her if she really thinks that's not menacing, Raincoaster responded, "I couldn't wish you any worse fate."

Although at times she used a private email account, in her final days as Counselor of the US Department of State and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State, Cheryl Mills sent an email from her government email address to her fellow "Dream Team" associates, which included former Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Richard Verma, who was then on Hillary Clinton's Foreign Affairs Policy Board at the same time he worked for international law firm Steptoe & Johnson, and Miguel Rodriguez, former Chief Counsel and Legislative Director for Clinton, when she was a Democratic New York senator.

Another email in the chain was sent by Rodriguez, who is currently an attorney for Bryan Cave, where he now represents Huma Abedin, the vice chairwoman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign for president and her former deputy chief of staff. Abedin is under fire for using an email address on the former Secretary of State's private server for government business while working at the State Department. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner's wife - who famously "stood by her man" after he embarrassingly resigned after lying about being hacked to cover up a sexting scandal - may face charges if she sent classified documents or info to Clinton, and she is also being investigated for alleged "embezzlement", according to an Inspector General's report. Rodriguez was also added to a 'Super PAC' "seeking eight-figure checks" for Clinton's presidential bid, as I reported on August 1, 2015.

"But Rodriguez brings some personal baggage to his role as Abedin’s counsel, as first noted by blogger Ron Brynaert," Patrick Howley wrote for Breitbart News on September 28, 2015. "Before joining Bryan Cave, Rodriguez served as deputy assistant secretary at Hillary Clinton’s State Department; then he was President Obama’s legislative director, where he became a 'point person' on the administration’s Benghazi response."

The exact email address for the fourth "Dream Team" member appears to belong to David S. Adams, but was redacted by the State Department, and his name doesn't appear in any of the three emails. A Google search for "cripplecreek61" reveals that it's also the name of the Twitter account that's associated to a user named David S. Adams, which was started in August of 2013. No tweets have ever been sent by @Cripplecreek61, but it follows Clinton, the State Department, the White House, a few media outlets and other government agencies. Adams was born in 1961, and he may have named his email address after the 1969 song, "Up On Cripple Creek" by The Band.

"Thank you all - for today, the last months, for four years of impeccable support and stewardship," Mills wrote. "You have always been ground zero for what she was able to do on the hill - yesterday and the past four years are a testament to your work, love and support."

Mills added, "Miguel was there representing all of you today - and it was like having you all in the room."

Rodriguez was being promoted to a higher position at the White House that week, while Clinton, Mills, Verma and Adams were leaving the State Department in 2013. "S" appears to be a reference to the former State Secretary.

"I'm hardly qualified to be the spokesman for this group, but it's been a tremendous four years," Rodriguez wrote Mills, Verma and, apparently, Adams. "Top to bottom, I think everyone can be proud."

He continued, "I've said it many times before but it's worth repeating -- most principals rely on staff to prop them up so they can look good. S is the rare person where the converse is true -- she lifts us all up and makes us all look good."

"Nice from miguel re what you do for all," Mills added, in a note to Clinton, who she forwarded the chain to a few hours later, at nearly 5:30 AM.

After leaving the State Department, Adams landed a job with Global Solutions, a lobbying firm owned by President Barack Obama adviser Anthony Podesta, whose brother is John Podesta, Chief of Staff for former President Bill Clinton and who also served as the current president's transition chief. Anthony Podesta worked on Bill Clinton's campaign, and as the Washington Post reported last July, bundled $74,575 for Hillary Clinton's current presidential campaign.

According, to his biography at Global Solutions, "Over the course of his career, David has served as a trusted adviser to both congressional leadership and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and earned the respect of the decision-makers who matter most. A tested negotiator, he has been instrumental in some of the most significant foreign affairs debates of the past decade and his understanding of the Obama administration’s foreign policy agenda is far-reaching. As Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs, David was the chief legislative adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and was instrumental in facilitating the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, civil nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia and Australia and the successful confirmation of 122 nominees. Previously, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for House Affairs, he was also key to the development of the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010, as well as approval of major arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Iraq and a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates."

Earlier today, I sent an email to Mr. Adams, but I haven't heard back from him, yet. I asked him the following questions: "Can you please confirm that 'cripplecreek61' is or was your private email address? Were you using the Clinton email server or another personal one? Did you use this email address frequently while serving as the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs of the United States Department of State? Did you use this email address on any official business in emails to Hillary Clinton or anyone else in the government? And when exactly did you leave your State Department position in 2013?"